The Curse of Sanity
by OrcaMafia
Summary: Amidst the insanity of Rikkaidai's beach field trip, Jackal Kuwahara runs into Rokkaku's Ryou Kisarazu. Both boys bond over being the only mentally sane members of their dysfunctional teams.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: (because this game is played in the story)**

**Suikawari**** (Watermelon Splitting) is a traditional Japanese game that involves splitting a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded. Played in the summertime, suikawari is most often seen at beaches.**

**Let's begin, shall we?**

_**Chapter One: In which we establish that both Rokkaku Chuu and Rikkaidai are equally insane. **_

**Jackal POV_  
_**

Jackal Kuwahara, the distressed and long-suffering member of the Rikkaidai Fuzoku Chuu tennis club, was yet again assuming the role of babysitter for their team's mentally unstable junior ace, Kirihara Akaya. No matter how many times Yukimura forced this daunting task upon him, it never got any less exasperating to the unfortunate Japanese Brazilian. But today, playing mommy for Kirihara was even more difficult because they were on a field trip to one of Chiba's beaches. Tired from the early morning bus ride which involved Kirihara throwing bits of his lunch out the bus window and onto unsuspecting traffic to "see if his mother's cookies could break a windshield," Jackal was now wearily watching his kouhai.

Kirihara was digging for hermit crabs and attempting to have them fight eachother inside a small red pail he had brought with him and thus was distracted. He was staring intensely at two of the small crustaceans, prodding one with a stick, whispering "_fight to the death, gladiator!"_

Jackal allowed himself a quick break to let his mind wander.

In the distance, his other teammates were all grouped together in what looked like a dysfunctional situation. Jackal sighed and observed them for a few moments. It looked as if Sanada had lost his swim trunks while in middle of swimming laps. It wasn't surprising; Sanada was a quick swimmer and the waves were rather rough that morning. His loose-fitting board shorts must have been swept away within the first lap. At the moment, he was in the water just deep enough that no one could see anything indecent. The only thing he was wearing was an expression that seemed to be a mix of horror, embarrassment and anger. He was going to explode any minute. Jackal watched a smug-looking Niou walk over holding something.

A few moments later and Jackal's short-tempered fukubuchou was redfaced (from both sunburn and fury) and screaming at Niou who was holding up what looked like a neon green Borat-style speedo. The exasperating trickster had a satisfied smile and Jackal could hear him tell Sanada "Someone must have stolen your spare change of clothes-This is all I could find in your bag. I guess wearing that's your only clothing option... unless you want to turn this into a nude beach experience, puri-"

"TARUNDORU! You are going to regret this, Niou Masaharu! Two hundred laps, full length of the beach-_And DO NOT come back until they have been completed!_"

Niou smirked, "Make me." He stood at the shoreline, not moving an inch.

Jackal supposed Niou's newfound confidence infront of his terror-inspiring fukubuchou could be attributed to the fact that it was the end of the school year and tennis season only had one practice left. What more damage could Sanada inflict with so little time before summer break?

A large, angry vein pulsed in Sanada's temple as he realized that chasing after Niou meant abandoning all his decency and dignity. He was still ass-naked at the beach. If Sanada moved any closer to the shore, the water level would go below his... Tennis balls, yeah, that's it.

Jackal turned his attention back to Kirihara, who was still trying to get his little collection of hermit crabs to fight eachother to the death. "_Die! Die! Die!_" he chanted, as one of the larger crabs scuttled lazily over to a smaller crab.

What was the rest of the team up to? He could see Yukimura approaching Sanada from the corner of his eye, holding a large rubber-ducky shaped water tube. Sanada's face assumed a hot blush and Jackal heard him murmur a begrudging "thank you", before pulling it over his body so the tube went around his torso and hid anything inappropriate. He still looked ridiculous, with his indignant and embarrassed expression and bright yellow duck shaped watertube. But it would have been better than being naked or in Niou's Borat-style speedo.

"Enjoying the beach?"

Jackal looked behind him. It was his bespectacled teammate, Yagyuu Hiroshi. The purple haired boy was wearing a rather comical-looking golf visor with a multicolored mini umbrella attached to the top of it and a pale yellow golf shirt, tucked neatly into long khakis. He was also holding a large sack of golf clubs and golf balls, each club with his initials finely embossed on the handle. There was a dark purple leather fannypack filled with golf tee's around his waist. Hard as it was to believe, this was the second least-insane member of the Rikkaidai tennis club.

Jackal let out a tired sigh. "Not particularly. But I guess I didn't really expect anything functional to happen today. What have you been up to?"

"Oh, I've just been practicing my golf. Good sand-pit practice for the trickier shots,"

"Ah, I see. I haven't seen Marui and Yanagi around. Everything alright with them?" Jackal inquired.

"Marui's in the bathroom; has been since we got here actually."

"No way, what happened?"

"Twelve pack of Twinkies and two chocolate shakes before the drive here. That, in addition to the bumpy bus ride, made Marui extremely carsick."

Jackal cringed. Too bad Bunta was on his own; Jackal couldn't hold his doubles partner's hair back while he vomited if he was already in the middle of Kirihara babysitting duty.

Yagyuu continued, "Yanagi is doing some chemical experiments further along the shoreline. Not sure exactly where he is, but he has five of his chemistry sets with him. He informed me that conducting these experiments at the beach would be the optimal location because if there is a volatile chemical reaction and the subsequent explosion creates a large amount of toxic waste, cleanup is easier."

Jackal nodded. It was hard being the only normal person at Rikkai. Well, aside from Yagyuu, he supposed. But the beach golf practice was still kind of weird. As was Yagyuu's golf fashion-sense.

"Jackal-senpai, are hermit crabs edible?" Kirihara suddenly said, mouth dangerously close to one of the twitching crustaceans in his pail. Jackal cringed.

Yagyuu spoke up, "Jackal-kun, you seem like you need a break. I'll watch Kirihara for a bit, don't worry about it. Go relax a little."

Jackal eyed Kirihara who was eyeing the poor crab with a hungry glint in his eye. He could probably trust Yagyuu, even if technically Jackal was the one who Yukimura assigned to watch Kirihara.

The half Brazilian rubbed his eyes and slowly got up. "Thanks a lot, Yagyuu. I'm just gonna go for a quick walk."

Yagyuu nodded, "See you. _Kirihara-Do NOT eat that, stop_!"

Jackal got up and left before he could be dragged back into Rikkai's madness.

_Man, it sure sucked being the only sane member of his team._

**Ryou POV**

Adjusting his cap, Ryou leaned back into his fold-up chair and let out a satisfied sigh. Chiba's beaches were perfect: bright white sand, scenic cliffs lining each end of the shore and the refreshing spray of ocean waves. How peaceful and relaxing. A light smile played on the boy's face and he began to grab for a lemonade juicebox in the ice cooler next to him. Until-

_THWACK!_

Ryou heard the loud noise of a metal bat hitting something hard. A split second later, a dozen large chunks of a light pink pulpy substance flew past Ryou's head, landing right in the middle of the cooler. Little bits of ice (which lined the bottom of the bin to keep the drinks cold) and the pink substance flew everywhere, several nailing Ryou right in the face.

Ryou heard a second loud "_thwack_!" and part of a watermelon rhine hit the back of his head, nearly knocking off his beloved cap.

Ryou clenched his jaw, turning around to glare at the source of this mess. Rokkaku's rookie captain, Aoi Kentarou, was playing Suikawari no less than five feet behind where Ryou was sitting. The younger boy made eye contact with Ryou from across the beach towel and rushed over.

"SORRY ABOUT THAT, RYOU!" Kentarou nearly yelled, bowing frantically and apologetically. "Itsuki's parents packed him with a lot of fruit and I thought it might be fun to go melon smashing on the beach! In retrospect, maybe I should have done this activity farther away from where you're sunbathing, but-"

Ryou cut off his captain's nervous, rambling explanation by holding his hand up, signaling Kentarou to cease talking. Kentarou wasn't getting the message and continued his nervous apology in a rather Ibu-like fashion for a few minutes.

"...Anyway, I'm sorry! Really! Won't happen again, promise!" Kentarou finished, bowing one last time for good measure.

Ryou rubbed his temple with his left hand as his right hand picked little melon pulp bits off of his white tank top. He looked at each one with disgust before flicking it off into the sand. Kentarou was still standing infront of him, unmoving and waiting for a response.

Ryou sighed. "Just, please, don't let it happen again-Okay? And help me clean up a bit?"

"Ofcourse!" Kentarou responded, smile returning to his face. He scampered over to the ice cooler and began picking out chunks of the destroyed watermelon that had landed inside the container. He must have found this an entertaining activity, because he suddenly hastened his pace of picking out the melon debris. As his cleaning got faster, it also got a lot sloppier. Kentarou was now quickly grabbing at the melon chunks with both hands and tossing them behind him with little regard for where these pieces actually landed.

Unfortunately for Ryou, another one of those chunks hit him in the head. He didn't even say anything this time. He just sat there, eyes burning holes into Kentarou's back as if he would somehow feel Ryou's displeasure. The melon chunk which had hit his head slid onto the brim of his cap and was now beginning to drip watermelon juice onto his already pulpy tanktop.

"Kentarou."

Rokkaku's young buchou turned around from his sloppy cleaning with a happy expression and a cheery, "Yes, Ryou?" Until he noticed that he had accidentally gotten even more watermelon debris onto Ryou's clothing.

Before Kentarou could repeat his frantic apology and explanation, Ryou gritted his teeth and simply said, "Let. Me. Clean. It. Up. Myself."

Kentarou opened his mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. "Y-Yes, Ryou! And sorry again!" The boy quickly scampered away to go swim in the ocean and away from the exasperation that radiated from the older Kisarazu.

Ryou let out yet another long winded sigh and quickly changed from his formerly white tanktop into a basic black tee shirt. Sure, black was a painfully hot color to wear under the summer sun, but at least it wouldn't get watermelon stains. He supposed he should finish cleaning up the melon from ice cooler, but Ryou was _not_ in the mood for anymore of that dastardly fruit. So he brushed off the remaining bits of pulp from his red hat, gingerly placed it back on his head and continued "sunbathing" in his fold up chair.

He reclined further back in his seat, closing his eyes and letting the sun warm his body. At least now he could enjoy the beach in peace. Or so he thought.

"Hey. Hey, Ryou,"

Ryou heard someone say his name from behind, then he felt the beach towel shift underneath his chair as another body sat down next to him. He didn't have to open his eyes to recognize the voice as Davide's.

"Yeah?"

"You know why we don't play tennis at the beach?"

Ryou opened one eye too look down at the younger boy. "Uh... Because there are no tennis courts-?"

"No... Because... Because our _balls would get sandy_! Pffffft!" Davide explained, just barely containing his giggles.

Ryou looked at him, horrified. He had been dreading the day that his kouhai found out about sexual innuendos and "that's-what-she-said" type humor. And today just happened to be that day. It took him a moment to realize that his mouth was still hanging open. He quickly closed it.

"Very funny." he said, not smiling at all.

As Davide sobered up, he asked Ryou another question, "Did you use protection?"

Ryou raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother responding. He sensed another sexual joke on the horizon. Maybe his teammate would just stop punning if he pretended to be deaf.

"...Well, I hope you did. _Wouldn't want you to catch any crabs at the beach_... Pfffffffffft!"

Ryou grimaced. The regular puns, he could take. The attempted sexual humor, not so much.

Suddenly a loud call came from behind Ryou, "_Would you cut it out with the stupid freaking jokes?!_"

The long haired boy whipped his head around just in time to see his teammate, Kurobane Harukaze, running at breakneck speed towards him and Davide. Someone was about to be Bane-kick'd bigtime.

Unfortunately, it wasn't Davide. Although Davide was Kurobane's intended target, Davide moved out of the way just in time to dodge his doubles partner's impending kick. Instead, Ryou was kicked harshly in the side (_Was this what Davide had to endure twenty times a day? It's a miracle he's still alive...)_. As Kurobane's foot collided with Ryou's side, the capped boy fell forwards out of his folding chair and face-first into the melon-filled ice cooler, receiving a face full of watermelon chunks.

"_Water_melon you doing in the cooler, Ryou? Pffffffft!"

In the distance, he heard Kentarou rushing over to help him, Kurobane furiously apologizing, Saeki happily asking him to stay like that for a moment so he could take a few pictures on his phone to send to Fuji, and a series of "Why is Ryou's head in the cooler? Why do you smell so much like melon? Why?" from Itsuki.

_Man, it sure sucked being the only sane member of his team._

**_To be continued..._**

**Oh man, I feel so bad for Jackal and Ryou!**

**In the next (and final) chapter, the two will finally get to meet and exchange team horror stories and bond over being too normal for their own good.**

**As always, please review! I love responding to my reviewers and receiving any suggestions/improvements you may have. It's also just nice to know that people are actually reading my story, so I have motivation to continue, haha. **

**See you next time!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the support, RikkaidaiPrincess and AnimeGleek! I'm glad you appreciate my attempts at humor-It's the only style I feel comfortable writing, really.**

**Anyways, onto the story!**

**_Chapter 2: In which Ryou and Jackal bond over being the only sane members of their mentally dysfunctional teams._**

Jackal breathed a long sigh of relief. He was taking a long walk along the shoreline, feeling rather calm and content because he was a very safe distance away from the insanity that was the Rikkaidai tennis club.

_Thank god_ Yagyuu had offered to babysit Kirihara for the rest of the outing. He didn't particularly feel like restraining the seaweed headed kid from eating hermit crabs. He also didn't particularly want to witness a bathingsuit-less Sanada angrily prancing around nude. And despite being an unquestioningly loyal friend to Bunta, he also didn't want to hold the redhead's hair back while he vomited the twelve-pack of Twinkies and two chocolate shakes that got him sick from during the bus ride.

It had been a pleasant stroll along the beach so far, now that he was away from his mentally unstable teammates.

Jackal took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh, salty sea air and feeling a crisp ocean breeze. The beach wasn't too crowded today. Probably because it was a school day and most kids were still in class. There were a few young adults sunbathing on towels here and there and a scattering of families with very young children, but he didn't see anyone close to his age.

It was a bit disappointing; Jackal was starting to feel rather lonely after about thirty minutes of mindless, solitary walking.

...Not that he was complaining about feeling lonely; There was no doubt that he needed a break from his usual group of friends. And he really did enjoy the company of his teammates. It was just that, as Jackal frankly thought, all of the Rikkaidai tennis club had lost their marbles.

Okay, maybe not _all _of them. In some circles, Yagyuu Hiroshi could have been considered "normal." Jackal _used_ to consider him "normal." But then, a few months ago during a Rikkaidai team dinner, Jackal witnessed the gentleman having a nervous breakdown at a restaurant because they had accidentally given him a dessert fork for his main course. Apparently, improper etiquette was a trigger for Hiroshi.

And then there was that one time that Yagyuu invited Jackal to go golfing with him. Before that experience, Jackal thought Kirihara was the only member who could transform into devil-mode. Well, clearly, he had never experienced Yagyuu's golfer's-rage.

After those incidents, much to Jackal's chagrin, he found out that Hiroshi was just an in-the-closet psycho. At least the rest of the team had come out. They were flaming psychos.

Jackal scratched his head and took a seat on the damp, sandy shoreline close to where the incoming tide was approaching. Every time the waves entered shore, they just barely grazed his toes. It was comfortable enough.

From behind him he heard someone else approaching. They (a male around his age, judging by the voice) seemed to be mumbling furiously to themselves. He only was able to pick out bits and pieces of the other boy's angry conversation over the noise of the crashing waves. Even so, he listened curiously.

_"_For god's sake... _'Wanna play suikawari on the beach five feet from Ryou? Sure! It's not like I'd smash a melon into his face'_... Stupid game. Stupid Davide and his stupid puns... _'Watermelon you doing, Ryou?'... _Oh wow, I can hardly contain my laughter." -sarcastic grumble- "_'Hold still so I can take some photos to send to Fuji'_... Yeah while my face is still stuck in the cooler, thanks Saeki. Geez... God they are dysfunctional... Now I know why Atsushi switched schools..."

From what Jackal heard, it sounded a lot like someone was going through the _exact_ same crisis that he was. And they mentioned Fuji? Seigaku's Fuji? Could they possibly be a tennis player as well-? As his curiosity peaked, Jackal slowly turned his head around to see who was uttering these _completely relatable_ complaints.

Jackal wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it probably wasn't someone with (quite literally) a face full of stray watermelon bits and pink stains all over his clothing. The surprise must have shown on his face, because the two boys quickly made eye contact.

"_What are you staring at?" _The capped boy sharply asked. Jackal didn't blame his harsh tone; he had clearly been through a stressful day.

...Then again, so had Jackal. But Jackal had long since mastered the art of patience and accepting that everyone around him was loony. He'd prefer to hold his anger in and let it simmer somewhere deep inside his mind. One day he would snap, for sure. But hopefully he'd at least be finished with junior high by then.

The melon-drenched boy was now standing right next to him. Jackal noted that he was wearing white board shorts with a small red hexagon pattern lining the sides. Then it clicked; He played for Rokkaku Chuu, didn't he?

Jackal quickly apologized for staring, "...Looks like you had a rough day, sorry, I didn't mean to gawk. By the way, you play for Rokkaku?"

The long haired boy eyed him suspiciously before something in his mind clicked as well and he finally recognized Jackal. "Yes... Wait-You're on Rikkaidai, aren't you? Doubles, right?"

"Yeah. I'm Jackal Kuwahara, nice to meet you. And you?"

"Kisarazu. Ryou Kisarazu-My twin brother attends Saint Rudolph, you might know him. He's teammates with Fuji's younger brother, Fuji Yuuta. Say, why are you guys in Chiba? Kind of a long drive from Rikkaidai."

Jackal watched amusedly as their conversation progressed, all the while Ryou was frantically washing his shirt and cap off in the ocean water before any melon stains set in. He wanted to ask what sort of calamity had caused this fruity mess (because it reminded him strongly of a specific incident where Kirihara went into devil mode on a watermelon during one especially violent game of suikawari last month.)

He resigned himself to smalltalk before pressing that matter.

"Today is Rikkaidai's end-of-school beach field trip. So all of us are here. I'm just hanging with my teammates-Well, I _was _hanging with them. But..."

Ryou raised an eyebrow, waiting for the other boy to continue.

"...But, they're all kind of... crazy? So I took a breather and I'm just on my own for now. Trust me, the peace and quiet is a _huge_ relief."

"Peace and quiet? _Here_? Hah! Don't be so sure, you're getting pretty close to where all _my _Rokkaku teammates are. And trust _me_, they're a handful. I mean, just look at this." Ryou smiled grimly, pointing to himself and the watermelon bits littered all over his clothing.

Their chat was taking an amusing turn. If this Ryou kid had any teammate insanity complaints, Jackal sure could relate. He grinned back, "I was about to ask... If you don't mind telling the story, that is."

"Hah, ofcourse I don't mind. I _need _ to vent to someone who seems sane... Okay, so our captain is our youngest player, a first year with a _bad_ case of hyperactivity," Ryou snorted, "And he had this _terribly bright _idea to play Suikawari literally _inches _away from where I was sitting."

"Ah, that explains it." Jackal nodded, thinking that that was the end of the other boy's story.

But Ryou continued to speak,

"And this is just the beginning. So, I was just trying to enjoy a peaceful morning on the beach, right? And first when he smashes the melon, he gets huge chunks all over my beach towel and into my cooler. It's literally _raining_ melon pulp. So he notices that I'm basically covered in fruit and starts helping me clean up. But _then _while he's throwing the melon bits out of our cooler, he hits me _again _with some of that stupid fruit,"

Jackal cringed. That did sound pretty tiring. This Kentarou kid sounded a bit like a certain impulsive, dysfunctionally energetic junior ace on Rikkaidai...

Ryou continued,

"Then another teammate sits down next to me after I tell Kentarou to leave me alone before he kills me with more melon. This next guy, we call him Davide, is _obsessed _with telling incredibly lame jokes. I mean, so lame they make your skin crawl. He tells them _all the time. _I think that he speaks in puns more often than just normal conversation, it's that bad,"

Ryou finished cleaning the remaining melon off of his clothing and took a seat on the sandy shore next to an entertained Jackal to continue his story.

"So Davide starts telling these god-awful sexual jokes-Don't make me repeat them, I cringe every time. And he has this... Masochistic routine with _another _one of my teammates, Kurobane, where basically 'Bane-san kicks Davide whenever he tells a bad pun. Hard. And the weird thing is: Davide almost looks _forward _to this punishment. Or else he'd stop telling puns around Kurobane, right?"

Jackal was enjoying this story so far. It heavily reminded him of the levels of crazy that he had to deal with at Rikkaidai. And he could certainly relate to physical punishment on the team. When Sanada slapped someone, he was using full-force as well. No doubt that if anyone on the team attempted a pun, Sanada would hit them hard just like this Kurobane guy.

Ryou finished his story, "Then, 'Bane tries to kick Davide after he tells this stupid sexual joke, but Davide moves out of the way just in time and guess who ended up getting kicked?," Ryou pointed to himself with a grim smile, "And guess who landed into the cooler that already had tons of Suikawari melon in it?," Ryou pointed to himself again. "See? I _told _you they were nuts. Even after all that, one of my teammates told me to stay there so he could take pictures!"

Jackal stared at him incredulously. _Finally, another mentally stable person fed up with their team's wild antics. _God, he could have hugged Ryou right then and there. He couldn't hold back a laugh. Not a reaction to Ryou's unfortunate story, more of a reaction to the fact that it seemed as if he'd finally met someone who _understood _him.

When Ryou raised his eyebrow at his laughter, Jackal coughed and straightened up a bit.

"Sorry, sorry-It's just... I feel the _exact_ same way."

"You got bombarded by melon today?" Ryou snorted.

"My whole team is comprised of lunatics."

"Do tell."

Jackal cleared his throat. Where to begin?

"Okay, okay. So first there's my double's partner, Marui Bunta."

"I remember him from nationals... Always chews gum, right?"

"Yeah, that's him. He chews it for the glucose since he has stamina issues. That and cakes, twinkies, milkshakes, icecream sundaes, cookies, lollipops-You name it, if it has sugar, he eats it. I think his record was five strawberry milkshakes, four slices of chocolate cake, two banana sundaes and four twinkies before a single match."

Ryou whistled in amazement.

"Yeah. And _he_ makes fun of _me_ for diligently shaving my head before each match, would you believe it?"

"No way. Hair care is very important; I get teased about how long my hair is all the time too! And the one who cracks most of the jokes uses _five_ cans of hairgel each morning!"

"Dude, you _get _me."

Ryou nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, so after Bunta, there's Kirihara Akaya. I'm always the one who buchou assigns to look after him and trust me, it is a tiring job. Akaya was trying to eat hermit crabs today. I could write a novel about how many psychotic things he's done."

"Oh yeah? Tell me one," Ryou asked, a smirk on his face. So maybe Rokkaku wasn't the wackiest team out there.

"Yesterday he got thrown out of a candle shop because he thought that the scented candles would taste like their flavor. Last Wednesday he got a detention in biology class for trying to cook the dissection frogs on a bunsen burner because he had heard that 'frogs legs were a French delicacy.' Earlier this month, he tried to start a school club devoted to burning ants with magnifying glasses. Like I said, I could write _novels _about him."

"And you're his designated babysitter?"

Jackal nodded. Ryou stared in disbelief. He patted the Japanese-Brazilian on the back, "Man, I feel for you. You have no idea." Jackal responded to his sympathy with an amused look, "I'm not even half finished with the rest of our team,"

"Please do continue."

"Then there's our doubles two players. Yagyuu Hiroshi and Niou Masaharu. Yagyuu's okay on the outside. He's part of student council and seems pretty chill when you first meet him. But his nickname's 'the gentleman' for a reason. He's... Surprisingly obsessed with manners and proper etiquette. To a scary degree. I saw him have a mental breakdown at a restaurant once when he was given a dessert fork for his main course. Yagyuu's also obsessed with golf. He brought his whole entire club collection with him to the beach for sand-pit practice."

"Oh wow. And Niou?"

"Our team trickster. He owns like eighty different disguises solely for the purpose of tricking people up for his own amusement. Him and Yagyuu like to switch places just just for fun. He just likes pranks in general though-And I don't mean your average, everyday pranking either..."

Ryou raised his eyebrow in curiosity.

"...He put windex in Kirihara's gatorade bottle last April Fools day, taped his reaction, and posted the video on youtube. Seriously, if you search 'brat gets his mouth cleansed', it's the first result with over fifty thousand views."

Ryou made a mental note to look that up when he got home that night. "I remember your buchou and fukubuchou. The one scary-calm guy and the other one who wears a cap?"

"Sanada Genichirou and Yukimura Seiichi. Sanada's our fukubuchou; he's a firm leader with more anger management issues than I can count. He slaps anyone who he thinks is slacking off. Hard."

Ryou chucked, "Reminds me of a certain teammate with a low pun tolerance." Both boys exchanged smiles.

"So then there's Yukimura. He has this weird way of acting where... He just somehow seems to read your mind just by looking into your eyes. Honestly, there's no other way to describe how scarily perceptive he is. He always has this serene smile, but underneath it he definitely has Fuji-level evilness."

Ryou nodded; He certainly knew about 'Fuji-level evilness.' He was teammates with Fuji's best friend, Saeki, after all.

"Sounds like a more extreme version of our Saeki Kojirou."

"The one with the two-colored hair?"

"Yup, that's the one. We're pretty good friends, but his best friend from childhood is Fuji Shuusuke and they hang out a lot."

Jackal gave Ryou a knowing look. Anyone who would be best friends with someone like Fuji just _couldn't _be normal or innocent.

Jackal propped his head up on his hands and stared out into the water. "So, tell me a bit about your team then... Who's this jokester guy you keep mentioning? The one who gets consistently kicked? Is he like Niou?"

Ryou couldn't help but snort. "Nah, he's _nothing _like your Niou. Davide, he's a jokester, not a trickster. He wouldn't harm a fly, but his jokes really _bug_ me." Ryou uncharacteristically chuckled at the pun he'd just made, "See? Stuff like that. It gets old really fast. That's why Kurobane always kicks him."

Jackal nodded in understanding. "Ah, so not so much like Niou... And Kurobane, is he anything like Sanada fukubuchou? You know, with the whole corporal punishment thing..."

"No, not at all! Kurobane's usually a pretty chill guy, he plays with the kids a lot too. It's just when the two are together, they're like a psychotically slapstick Manzai pair."

"I got it." Jackal gestured with his hand, urging the other boy to continue.

"Okay, then there's Itsuki Marehiko, Saeki's doubles partner. He loves to question _everything_. Don't get me wrong, he has moments of philosophical brilliance and all, but they're few, far and in between his _constant _questioning. You know how little kids always ask 'why' about every single thing that happens? That's basically It-chan. All the time."

"That sounds pretty grating... Kirihara can act like that sometimes too. Like a curious and impulsive little kid."

Ryou nodded. "And there's our buchou, Aoi Kentarou, whom I mentioned briefly before. The one who got me covered in melon," Ryou took a moment to roll his eyes then continued, "Our hyperactive super rookie captain. Also obsessed with getting a girlfriend, I might add. We went to the beach once and this group of girls was _all over _Saeki and Kentarou just went ballistic. The kid is desperate for a girlfriend, I'm telling you."

Jackal laughed. He couldn't imagine any of Rikkaidai's players being girl-crazy. They were all too serious or deranged for regular romance. Bunta, maybe, but Jackal reasoned that he would be awful to take on dates. Imagine how much his poor significant other would be spending on food!

"Oh, and did I tell you how our coach decided our captain?"

Jackal cocked his head curiously. At Rikkaidai, it was a basic process: choose the member who seemed most adept at not only tennis prowess, but also leadership and responsibility. "How?" He asked.

"Completely at random. Not kidding. He handcrafts all our racquets with painstaking effort and precision, but when it comes to picking our team captain, it's a complete crapshoot. Oji just arbitrarily pointed to Kentarou while he was cleaning up tennis balls and decided he was captain."

Jackal blinked, surprised. "Seriously? That's so... So..."

"Yeah, wacky, I know. As I said, our team's ridiculous," Ryou paused for a moment and scratched his head underneath his cap, "Loveably ridiculous, I suppose. But ridiculous, definitely."

Jackal smiled, "It's like Rokkaku is some wacky TV sitcom that also plays tennis on the side."

"Pretty much. And what is Rikkaidai, then?"

"Huh... I suppose Rikkai's like a psychological horror movie that also plays tennis on the side."

"So what does that make you and I?"

Jackal and Ryou answered this one simultaneously "...The audience."

Both boys looked at eachother and grinned.

**I had Ryou Kisarazu's "Sorairo no Umi" (from the Rokkaku mini album) on repeat the whole time while writing this. It's such a catchy song!**

**I wish the anime gave more information on Ryou's personality. For the most part, it seems like he's the moodier twin (as seen in the National Tournament arc) with a ****_slight_**** cocky edge (during his match with Atsushi during the training camp arc). So I'm basing most of his personality off of those instances. Either way, I can definitely see him shaking his head in exasperation at his team's zany antics.**

**As for It-chan's personality, I discuss him briefly and I kind of merged his manga version and anime version a bit (they both have slightly different personalities).**

**Anyway, please, please review as always! I'm always looking to improve my style.**

**I also realize that this chapter was a lot heavier on the friendship and less so on the humor. But I'm happy I was able to insert some funny bits and pieces into their conversation (can't you imagine Kirihara starting a "burning-ants-with-magnifying-glasses" club at school though?).**

**Thanks for reading!**


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